Uh-Oh! A Word Humans Never Want to Hear – Conversations with Stella

Hello! I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. I am working on my human vocabulary for my dictionary. Vocabulary is a long, confusing human word that means WORDS. Why can’t humans say what they mean instead of stringing lots of sounds together…uh-oh!

Me: Uh-oh? What’s uh-oh? Where? Who? What?

Stella: Uh-oh.

Me: Come on, Stella. What’s wrong?

Stella: Nothing.

Me: Uh-oh is one of a long list of words that I don’t want to hear.

Stella: Okay. I won’t say it anymore.

Me: Too late! You’ve already said it. What is wrong?

Stella: You know that little wooden gate for the little wooden fence.

Me: Yes.

Stella: You know how there were some boards with a latch on one side.

Me: What do you mean ‘were’?

Stella: Slow down. You are getting ahead of me on my uh-oh story. Well, there were some boards with a latch on one side, but now there aren’t. Emphasis on the were and more emphasis on the aren’t. Therefore, uh-oh. Sorry. I had to say uh-oh again.

Me: Don’t tell me. Let me guess how it happened.

Stella: Okay, guess. To save time, if you guess that Doodlebug pulled it off, you will be right.

Me: I knew it. I knew he was paying entirely too much attention to that gate. And it wasn’t even closed. The only time we close it is when y’all are getting baths on the patio.

Stella: Well, that won’t be happening soon, will it? And maybe that was the whole point.

Me: That won’t stop the bathing. You will simply get your baths in the tub.

Stella: Oh.

Me: Wait a minute. Did you encourage Doodlebug to pull on those boards so you wouldn’t have to get baths for a while?

Stella: Doodlebug never has to be encouraged to pull on anything with that big mouth of his. He may have figured it out when he got his last bath. He is very clever.

Me: Yes, he is. Scary smart.

Stella: I will add ‘uh-oh’ to my bulldog dictionary. UH-OH: a word that no human ever wants to hear. It always means that a bulldog has done something bulldoggy.